After a long cold, damp, foggy day in Sa Pa 6.30pm eventually arrived and our "taxi" came. As it was cold and raining we should have guessed really - the "taxi" was a motorbike!. Somewhat disgruntled MM clambered onto the back of the bike, muttering away to herself, to be ferried to the bus first while I waited in a shop doorway for the driver to return for me. About 15 minutes later he arrived back and took me through the wet, slippy streets of Sa Pa to the bus station to rejoin MM and catch the bus. When we got there MM was no where to be seen. The driver looked worried and was crossing and recrossing the road. I asked him where my wife was and he said "I stop there, I tell her not move, wait me - maybe she go buy something". Two problems with this statement. Firstly MM never does as she's told (usually because she isn't listening!) and secondly she couldn't have gone to buy something as she's like the Queen, she never has any money, she relies on muggins to shell out for everything! It was a very dark, scruffy part of town so I was getting a bit worried and set off into the coach park calling her name. A small black form with a small orange glow at about 4ft 6ins from the ground emerged from the shadows and said " You took ages, I'm freezing". Completely oblivious to our concerns that she'd gone missing she recrossed the road to stand in a small shelter. It was another 30 minutes before the bus arrived by which time we were wet and very cold (the temperature was only 5 degrees and we have no winter gear). As it pulled into the bus stop we took our bags and went to meet it. The driver wouldn't let us, or any of the other passengers, onto the bus but sent out his female Rotweiller assistant to deal with us pesky customers. She was yelling at everyone and in the end we realised that our bags were going on the roof, not in the enclosed luggage bays of the bus. This didn't please us as there seemed to be room in the luggage bays but that was probably being reserved for whatever cargo they would be carrying that night! We got our bags on the roof and hoped for the best, relieved that we could now get on the bus out of the rain, get a good berth and settle down for the night. WRONG - the driver stood menacingly at the top of the stairs refusing to let us on. As it was still raining I told MM to ignore him and get on the bus. She wouldn't so I "guided" her up a couple of steps so she and I were at least out of the rain, keeping eye contact with the driver so he understood my determination! It was at this point that the real problem became apparent. Our bags were now wrapped in tarpaulins on the roof and weren't coming off and the bus was absolutely full. Every berth had someone in it and all the floorspace had someone sitting on it. It was impossible to see how the 10 people, including us, were going to get on the bus. Now the Rottweiler came into her own. She pushed past MM and me, head butted the driver back into his seat then progressed down the bus gangway kicking people out of berths onto the floor or onto berths with people already on them, she even put 3 poor locals into the boot space/parcel shelf behind the last row of berths! This liberated 7 berths for us westerners and she waved manically for us to clamber into them quickly so we could get going. MM and I ended up on the back rack of 5 berths with a German and 2 Kiwis with our heads just in front of the 3 heads of the poor locals put in the boot space balancing on a metal strip. The photo below gives some idea but doesn't really capture how close we all were. Although we seem to be enjoying ourselves it was more a case of "I can't believe this". The bus has 32 berths and I counted 66 people on it - it was a death trap, in the event of a fire or an accident there was no way out. After getting over our predicament we tried to settle down for the journey. This proved very difficult with someone just next to your left ear hole breathing, talking or shouting. The shouting started about 1 hour into the journey, just after the retching sounds of someone who is just about to vomit! This was not music to my ears and my imagination ran wild as to what might happen in the next 10 to 15 minutes. The poor man was ignored for ages until, eventually, the poisoned dwarf appeared, shouted at him, handed him a clutch of small plastic bags then disappeared again to collect fares from all those that didn't have tickets - nice little earner for the driver and the Rottweiler. After a single stop at some disgusting establishment we eventually arrived in Dien Bien Phu at 5.30 am. Probably the worst 10 hours travelling of my life, but we'd made it. This was the first place we'd been where no one spoke English. We had a coffee at a roadside cafe next to the bus station and then tried to buy a ticket to Luang Prabang for the next morning. The ticket girl said we could go now but not tomorrow - I thought they were taking the p*ss. We set off walking to find our hotel and drop our bags as the room wouldn't be available until 2.30pm - great! Fortunately, when we got to the hotel, Nam, the proprietor let us have our room straightaway, I could have kissed him! We had a nap and then I went exploring while MM stayed in the room. She'd picked up a cold and hadn't been well for a few days so we thought some time relaxing in front of the heater might help. Dien Bien Phu is quite important in Vietnamese history as its where they finally defeated the French in 1954. Consequently there is a memorial, a cemetery, a museum, a bunker and a bridge to visit but little else to commend the town. During my walk around I got absolutely drenched, the locals must have wondered what this mad European was up to. On my return I spoke to Nam about buses to Luang Prabang and he phoned the bus company for me (he'd been to university in Melbourne so his English was good). He explained that the bus to Luang Prabang had indeed been cancelled for Thursday but that we could catch a VIP minibus (22 seats) to Udomaxai and then catch another on to Luang Prabang. Having seen everything in Dien Bien Phu I was keen to move on so we decided to take that option. We got to the bus station at 7.45am to find another very full bus, 30 people for 22 seats - most of them locals who seemed to know each other. I didn't like the atmosphere on the bus, it felt very "us and them" and I wondered if the Europeans were tolerated as cover for getting stuff over the border. Anyway, MM and I got a seat and off we went. After about an hour we reached the border with Loas and exited Vietnam with few problems other than the battle between the Customs team and the Immigration team to exchange your Dong for Loas Kip! Over we went to the Laos frontier. The people were smiley but were ready to take their pound of flesh nonetheless. First we showed our passport and were given a visa and immigration form to complete. Once completed we returned to the window to hand in the forms. We then had to pay $35 each for our visa then go to another window where the chap asked for 20,000 kip to stamp the visa! We were then sent back to the first window and asked to pay $2 "visitor tax"! Having done all this we started walking off towards the bus laughing at how many " taxes" there are at border crossings only to be chased by a small, scruffy, rotund chap in a shabby green uniform. He beckoned us back to his office and said "helt, helt, ecoli" he then waved something in front of our faces that looked like a laser pen, said "tempture, tempture". It went " bing" and he said "you OK, 5000kip". I couldn't stop laughing as I paid him for my clean bill of health! Back on the VIP bus our travels continued until we stopped for lunch at our worst " service station" to date - it was dreadful. After the locals had lunch we continued to Udomaxai where we caught the next and final minivan of our journey. The driver said we had until 4.30 so we ordered some Pho (local soup) as we hadn't eaten anything all day. Just as it arrived at 4.10 the driver ran across the road and called us to leave as he'd sold all his seats and was ready to go! We looked longingly at our soup but had to go. The route was up and down through the mountains in cloud and rain on unmade roads which was a bit scary, particularly when you could feel the back end sliding as we went round the bends. I was quite pleased when it got dark so I couldn't see what was happening. After about 2 hours we stopped and were able to get some Pho, it was delicious. At 9pm we eventually reached Luang Prabang and had found a room by 10pm. A long couple of days tough travel that I don't think we'll ever forget - but we made it and will laugh about it for years!
